New funding from the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)
will allow IOM to continue its activities to promote peaceful
coexistence between returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
and host communities in Western Côte d'Ivoire.

The USD 200,000 funding will support the work of the nine Peace
Committees set up by IOM in 2008 in the Western department of
Bloléquin, where complex and yet unresolved land issues have
led to increased tensions between returning IDPs and local
communities.  

The programme will provide some 10,000 returning IDPs and 18,000
people from host communities with vital infrastructures, including
the provision of water and sanitation facilities.

"This funding is vital to help defuse current tensions between
IDPs and unemployed youth in and around Bloléquin," says
Jacques Seurt, IOM's Chief of Mission in Côte d'Ivoire. "But
providing immediate relief is not enough. This is why we intend to
work at grassroots level with our national and local counterparts,
including community leaders and traditional elders, to find durable
solutions that will address the long-term needs of both IDPs and
host communities."

IOM has provided comprehensive direct and indirect return and
reintegration assistance to 20,000 IDPs and 50,000 members of host
communities since the signing in March 2007 of a peace
agreement.

As part of on-going reconciliation efforts, IOM teams have
travelled to remote villages in western Côte d'Ivoire to
promote reconciliation at a local level.

Meetings, carried out in coordination with local authorities,
humanitarian agencies and partner NGOs, bring together members of
displaced communities and village elders to discuss issues
surrounding the return to the land for displaced
families. 

The gatherings are usually followed by ceremonies of
reconciliation in villages, where local communities have expressed
concerns regarding the return of the
displaced.     

For more information, please contact:

Jacques Seurt

IOM Abidjan

Tel: +225 22 52 82 00

E-mail: "mailto:jseurt@iom.int">jseurt@iom.int